AWS re:Invent 2018: What to Expect

Amazon's conference for all things cloud kicks off in Las Vegas in a month. Here's one take on what those attending might see at the show, plus three tips for newbies.

The annual AWS re:Invent conference is just around the corner: Nov. 26-30 in Las Vegas. We’re expecting product news from Amazon Web Services and its partners on several fronts. To help you prepare, here’s a list of likely topics that will be of interest to cloud-focused partners:

Enterprise Security: As enterprise cloud adoption grows, so, too, does the need for stronger governance and security. Amazon GuardDuty was released at re:Invent 2017, so we may see new capabilities around this threat-detection service, such as improved integration with other AWS products. Meanwhile, AWS announced its Compliance Center service for financial services companies in September. We expect to hear more about it at this year’s show, too. It’s also very likely that AWS and its partners will highlight security and visibility for ephemeral resources, such as containers, and AWS Lambda.

Transit Virtual Private Cloud Service: For many years, we have had the architectural challenge of transitive routing in AWS. My guess is AWS will address the issue at this year’s show. With other recent, related product releases and significant activity around Transit VPC via Cloud Formation Template in combination with Lambda, tags and Cisco Cloud Services Routers, it feels like we’re almost there. Surely, AWS will not let another year pass without a solution.

General Releases: Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager was released in July and is a simple way to schedule and manage Elastic Block Storage volume backups without relying on a third-party tool. We expect to see expansion of this service into more regions and are hopeful for more granular snapshot timing options as well. Currently, the service allows scheduled backups to run only every 12 or 24 hours. As has become the norm, we anticipate new instance types and/or families to be announced at re:Invent. Last year, we saw M5 and H1 instance types as well as bare-metal instances (preview) introduced. Per an article by Jeff Barr earlier this year, bare metal instances with 6TB, 9TB, 12TB and more are in the works — all designed specifically for SAP HANA and other in-memory workloads. We wouldn’t be surprised to see additional details on these offerings.

Tips, Tricks for Getting the Most Value at re:Invent

If this is your first year at re:Invent, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Avoid walk-up breakout sessions, unless there is a very short, or no, line. Many people have waited up to two hours for a walk-up breakout session only to be turned away at the door due to a full house. Fortunately, all breakout sessions are recorded and posted online, so if you can’t make one live, use your lunch break to play catch up once you get home.

Consider signing up for the Hackathons, Security JAMs, Labs, Workshops and Chalk Talks instead of breakout sessions. These are usually a really good investment of your re:Invent time, where you get to interact and learn a lot. These are often not recorded and shared online, so taking advantage of these in-person is a great opportunity.

And finally, avoid relying on the shuttle service if you have limited time between events in different hotels. Instead, consider using the monorail system. Plan ahead, though, so you know where the entrances are, as you may not have time to do that while you are racing from event to event.

Dustin Snyder is cloud enablement practice manager and cloud architect at 2nd Watch, where he’s focused on growing the firm’s public cloud consulting and implementation practice. Day to day, Snyder handles customer account on-boarding and support. He also designs and implements resilient, scalable and agile solutions for enterprise-level infrastructure by leveraging cloud-based methodologies such as IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. You can follow 2nd Watch on Twitter.

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